I still remember the ringing of the bells as my classmates poured out of our school and onto the buses in anticipation for what seemed to be, at that time, a week-long holiday. No one said goodbyes; we were being sent home from school a week early, and all that meant was another week of summer vacation. Little did we know that that short week would turn into a month, which would turn into a year, spending all of our time staring at a little screen, trying to make sense of the world around us.

The pandemic came as a shock to everyone, a tidal wave with no stopping, no boundaries, no end point. The effects of this have been and will always be extreme and everlasting.

Social interaction in itself plays a primary role in the health of humans, as, after all, humans have been named as primarily social creatures. This lack of social interaction and widespread isolation led to tumultuous effects, and soon the idea of social interaction in itself diminished rather quickly. As a result, mental instability, stress, and anxiety were rapidly spreading and it seemed like there was no chance of returning to what used to be normal. Of course, apps such as Houseparty and Zoom took off, offering their users social interaction while quarantined, but soon died down as well as nothing can replace physical interaction.

Soon communities began to react; isolation wasn’t sitting well with them. Crowds in India began to gather in all sorts of places, like cricket matches and election rallies. It almost seemed as if something had broken. Humans cannot and will not ever be able to survive without socializing. As a matter of fact, numerous studies have shown there is a direct correlation between lack of interaction and both mental and physical health issues.

As Atul Gawande, an American surgeon, said, "Human beings are social creatures. We are social not just in the trivial sense that we like company, and not just in the obvious sense that we each depend on others. We are social in a more elemental way: simply to exist as a normal human being requires interaction with other people."